Stuff that matters

Toyota says it’s on the cusp of a major electric vehicle breakthrough.

The automaker revealed last week that it had achieved a sought-after improvement in existing lithium-ion technology by developing a “solid state” battery.

Solid-state batteries — which, as you may have guessed, have solid electrolytes rather than the usual liquid — are more expensive than traditional lithium-ion cells, but they can charge incredibly quickly and store a lot more power. (Plus, they’re less likely to explode.) Toyota says it plans to release a family of cars with the new technology in 2022.

That’s a long time away, and a lot can happen in the process of developing a new technology, but Toyota’s early announcement suggests the company is confident it can deliver on its promise, Axios reports.

And since demand for electric cars has been driving advances in energy storage that make renewable energy look more and more attractive, we’re excited to see what will happen to solar and wind power by 2022.

A volcano in Bali could erupt at any minute. More than 75,000 people have evacuated.

People are seeking refuge in camps, village halls, and relatives’ homes after fleeing the area around Mount Agung in Indonesia.

Mount Agung experienced hundreds of volcanic earthquakes on Monday and Tuesday, an indication that magma is moving toward the surface and an eruption may be coming. Local officials warn it could be just a “matter of hours.”

“Instrumentally we have never recorded such high energy or seismicity from Mount Agung,” Devy Kamil Syahbana, an Indonesian seismologist, told the Guardian. Authorities urged people to move out of the danger zone, an area within a seven-mile radius of the crater.

When the volcano last erupted in 1963, more than 1,000 people were killed. The explosion sent ash 12 miles high and spewed sulphur dioxide, which reacted with water vapor in the atmosphere to form droplets of sulphuric acid. The resulting haze in Earth’s stratosphere cooled global atmospheric temperatures by 0.1–0.4 degrees C.

There’s no telling exactly when Agung will go off again, but an eruption could have a similar, temporary effect on the atmosphere.

Hurricanes have made Caribbeans the world’s latest climate refugees.

And officials from the islands haven’t held back in reminding the industrialized world who’s at fault here. (Hint: not island people.)

Over the weekend, Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit was unapologetic as he spoke to the United Nations General Assembly. Hurricane Maria lashed his island before going on to destroy Puerto Rico. The Category 5 storm killed at least 15 residents of Dominica last week.

“While the big countries talk, the small island nations suffer,” said Skerrit. “We need action, and we need it now.”

It’s no secret that the developing world, especially island nations, will bear the brunt of climate change impacts — even though these places have contributed the least to global warming. And Caribbean leaders used their platform in New York City this past weekend to hammer this point home.

The country of Antigua and Barbuda is struggling to rebuild following landfalls by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Prime Minister Gaston Browne eventually made his way to the U.N. with sobering news: “For the first time in 300 years, there is no permanent resident of Barbuda.”

News shows ignore the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico.

Millions of American citizens are without power, shelter, or clean water after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory last week. Yet, if you watched the news on Sunday, you would have heard hardly anything about it.

Five major political talk shows on Sunday spent less than a minute total covering the urgent crisis, according to a new report from Media Matters. Shows on ABC, CBS, and Fox all failed to touch on the situation. CNN and NBC mentioned Puerto Rico in passing, asking President Trump and viewers to help.

Why does Ryan Zinke keep saying fracking is a sign of “God’s sense of humor?”

Interior Secretary Zinke loves domestic energy production, but not as much as he loves repeating weird, jokey assertions about domestic energy production. For example, he keeps trotting out the same line about fracking, a natural gas extraction process that he’s pushed to reinstate on public lands.

In a speech at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California, on April 15: “God’s got a sense of humor. He gave us fracking. And all of a sudden, we have more energy than anybody. But we’re going to use it right.”

Hurricane Maria has crushed Puerto Rican farmers.

The devastation wiped out 80 percent of Puerto Rico’s agricultural production, according to Puerto Rico’s agriculture secretary, Carlos Flores Ortega. The New York Times visited farmer José A. Rivera after the winds flattened his plantain, yam, and pepper fields.

“There will be no food in Puerto Rico,” Rivera, told the Times. “There is no more agriculture in Puerto Rico. And there won’t be any for a year or longer.”

Food prices will surely rise on the island, although the loss of crops will not necessarily mean people will starve. Puerto Rico imports about 85 percent of its food. Even so, the storm damaged the infrastructure used to distribute imported food, like ports, roads, and stores.

This week, workers at the federal agency attended a one-hour training course on how to prevent leaks to the press.

In response, they disclosed memos and slideshows from the course to multiple outlets, including The Hill, Reuters, and the Associated Press. Politico received a leaked memo about the class before it even took place.

The training was part of a wider White House crackdown on leaks across federal agencies. Though most EPA staff don’t handle classified files, agency officials wanted to prevent workers from sharing what they called “controlled unclassified information,” citing national security concerns.